"I cannot comprehend you. Then why have you obeyed the commands of him who
might have caused your head to roll from the scaffold? Why have you
preferred life, without your treasure, if this life seems so horrible to
you?"

"It is, do you see," answered the notary, in a voice sunk to a whisper, "it
is not the thought of death--it is annihilation. And Cecily!"

"And you hope!" cried Polidori, astonished.

"I hope not; I possess---"

"What?"

"The remembrance."

"But you will never see her again; she has delivered up your head!"

"But I love her still, and more madly than ever," cried Jacques Ferrand,
with an explosion of tears, of sobs, which strangely contrasted with the
calmness of his last words. "Yes, I love her always, and I do not wish to
die, so that I can plunge myself deeper and deeper with wild delight into
this furnace where I am consumed by inches. For you do not know--that
night--that night in which I saw her so beautiful--that night is always
present to my thoughts--that picture of voluptuousness is there,
there--always there--before my eyes. Let them be open or shut, in feverish
weakness or burning watchfulness, I see her black eyes and inflaming
glances, which boil the marrow of my bones. I feel her breath upon my
face--I hear her voice."